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Video:What Is Karma?

Here, learn information about karma and what it means in Hinduism.See Transcript

Transcript:What Is Karma?

Hi! My name is Eileen Muir for About.com, and today I'm going to speak about karma.

Facts About Karma

The definition of karma is action, and the root of the sanskrit word means 'to do.' So basically, anything you think, say, feel, or do, creates karma - and there's the possibility of creating positive or negative karma.

Information About Karma

At the root of karma is the kleshas. And the word klesha is the word that stands for obstacles in Sanskrit. There are five of them: The first klesha is ignorance, the second is ego, the third is aversion, craving, and fear of dying. So at any given moment in life, you're acting from one of the kleshas, and you're either creating karma that's good karma or bad karma. And that affects your life and affects your future life, affects your present and your future.

So if you create positive karma, then it can actually undo the negative karma from your past. According to the Bhagavad Gita, if we surrender our actions to God, and give up the fruits of our actions, is the highest practice. If you do good deeds in your life, then you're creating a storehouse of good karma, and it will have a ripple effect. It will affect you, it will affect everyone you interact with, and it will create more peaceful vibration in the world.

So, actions can be virtuous or non virtuous, and correspondingly, the fruits of the actions will correspond to whatever the actions are. Thanks for watching! To learn more, visit us on the web at About.com.

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